You wanted a ticker tape parade.
You wanted a Rolex.
You wanted a closet filled with designer clothes.
You wanted a trophy case the size of a yacht.
You wanted to be Lebron James.
You wanted to be David Bowie.
You wanted friends in High Places.
You wanted an arena full of screaming fans.
You wanted The Grand Prize.

What you got was a quiet country road
and sensible shoes to walk it.

That's more than enough.

Blind faith, idolatry.
So tempting.

Though it's almost always misplaced.
Though our heroes always fail us.

Not their fault.
We expect too much.
We expect the impossible.

Open the cage door.
Let them go.

I'm with Brother Beavis
on this one

Listening to the song
"Shiny Happy People"
makes me feel kind
of shiny and happy

Listening to it makes me want
to step away from the ledge,
to take the gun barrel out of my mouth,
to unhook the hose from the exhaust
pipe and open the car windows,
to put the cap back on the bottle of pills,
to pull my head out of the noose,
to put away the razor blade

Yeah, I know it was written tongue in cheek
and meant to be ironic, satiric or whatever

Don't care, it makes me feel good

Sick of it yet?

On my deathbed,
my bony finger
will reach for
the keyboard
like Adam's finger
reaches out to God
in Michelangelo's famous
Sistine Chapel painting
and hit, "Delete All."

Waving their banners, spewing hate,
armed to the teeth they come,
barbarians at the gate.

They're enraged, irate,
like a baby ripped from the womb.
Waving their banners, spewing hate

Beyond any decency or restraint,
stinking of whiskey and ***.
Barbarians at the gate

Parroting lies, they berate
their betters, they beat their drums.
Waving their banners, spewing hate.

Man the ramparts! It's not too late!
Oh, where did they come from?
Barbarians at the gate.

Years on, when we recall this date,
we'll shake our heads, again struck dumb.
Waving their banners, spewing hate,
there were barbarians at the gate.

You give them money
and, for a minute or two,
they pretend to like you.

Most, if not all of them, despise you.
Who can blame them?

They laughed when, hands
bound behind his back,
he ran deliberately headfirst
into a wall to try and escape
the pain

When it didn't work
they jeered and mocked

He wasn't getting off that easily

An exhibition and
Michelle Kwan skating
to the Tori Amos song
"Winter"

Not yet knowing
that the Olympic Gold Medal

she so desperately craves
and deserves will
forever elude her

They're smarter than the scientists
who've studied climate change for years.

They're smarter than the doctors
who've studied vaccines and viruses for years.

They're smarter than the intelligence officers
who've worked in the field for years.

They're smarter than any rocket designer,
any chemist, any physicist, any structural engineer.

And they're way, way smarter than you or me.

And what makes them so smart?
How do they know so much?
How did they discover THE TRUTH?

Why, they read all about it on the internet!

Since I pulled up stakes
and ditched this hellhole
chances are the only time
I'll soil the pages
of my s**y hometown paper
again will be in the obits
when I croak.

No more drunk and disorderly
notices. No more photos
of me at anti-government rallies.
No more of my letters to the editor.
No more misleading articles
about the squabbles with my
puke-faced neighbors or my
allegedly delinquent tax payments.

So go ahead you crap-heads and find
someone else to kick around.

This dog is long gone.

"The ardor aroused in men
by the beauty of women
can only be satisfied by God,"
is a quote from Paul Verlaine
that I cannot verify.

Pretty much says it
though the local catcallers
phrase it somewhat differently.

Forget those silly Charmin commercials
Forget the family of bears

When you have mud ****
You can wipe until the end of time
And never get clean

Give up, surrender

And jump in the shower

Remember Eden,
The Tree Of Life,
the forbidden fruit.
Remember Commandments.

"Thou shalt not invade
and subjugate a sovereign country.
Thou shalt not fire upon civilians.
Thou shalt not threaten nuclear war."

Take note little KGB stooge:
The territory you covet
does not belong to you.

"Thou shalt not drop bombs
on schools and hospitals.
Thou shalt not torture dissidents.
Thou shalt not ****** journalists.
Thou shalt not exploit and steal
from you own countrymen."

Little Butcher, Little Troll:

This time, you've gone too far.
This time, you've done it.

Ukraine is not yours to pilfer.
The good citizens will defeat you.
You will not and cannot win.

And on Judgment Day,
The God you disdain will
have something to say.

Wouldn't want to be you Mr. Putin.

Bandits. Extortionists.
Corporate pirates.
The worst of the worst.

New year? They jack up the rates.
Springtime? They jack up the rates.
Summer? Autumn? Ditto.

Expenses the excuse.
Inflation the excuse.
Hell, they don't need an excuse,
they're Big Cable *******,
so **** it.

Customer Service?
Incompetent or worse,
rude aggressive, dismissive
and incompetent.
A joke.

Tired of dealing with you?
They hang-up or leave
you hanging. Dead air.
You're welcome Buddy.

Shameless. Insulting.

Done with the b------s.
Good-bye and good riddance!

A live lobster.
A *** of boiling water.

Don't do it.

Are a house on stilts
in shifting sand
in the path of a tsunami

Ask if you like,
But the answer is no.

What shocked her most
was how angry they were,
as if her very existence was offensive.

The gang of armed men
and their dogs hunted her down,
cornered her in an abandoned shack
outside of the city proper.

They dragged her by the hair,
ziptied her hands,
as if she were a threat,
as if she could fight back.

They beat and defiled her,
then put a bullet in the back of her head,
dismembered her body,
cut up the pieces and scattered them
across a fallow field.

A year passed before
they allowed her loved ones
to search for her remains.

When her family came to the field,
to everyone's great surprise,
all they could see was green.

Like flies on stink.
Like hair on a gorilla.

The ghouls and goblins.
The rubberneckers. The media.

Here the camp.
Here the shrine.

They gasp. They cluck.
They repeat and repeat.

Until the next one.
Until they pick up and move on.

***** words on a page.
Edit and rearrange.
Repeat. More *****,
more edit, more rearrange.
Repeat.
Repeat again.
Tack on sassy ending.
Done.

Meghan McCain
is correct on this one.

The Chinese elite raised
on repression, torture
and butchery, carry on
with repression, torture
and butchery.

But Big Money talks
and the IOC plays
a game of let's pretend.

And Peng Shuai?
Her ****** is probably
first on the list for when
they harvest her organs.

On some level even the most die-hard cultists
must realize that their orange-skinned Messiah
wants to burn down The Republic.

They're so angry they don't care.

When he’s not sexually assaulting women,
Insulting war heroes, the disabled,
Veterans, Gold Star families

When he’s not hoarding
Classified documents, cheating contractors,
Hiring illegal immigrants, stiffing employees,
Kowtowing to dictators, chumming around
With Jeffrey Epstein and lusting after young girls
Who remind him of Ivanka at age thirteen

When he’s not committing tax fraud,
Filing for bankruptcy, peddling nuclear secrets,
Mocking evangelicals, threatening election workers
And his own vice president

When he’s not promising to build a border wall,
Selling products made in China,
Using campaign funds to pay his lawyers,
Conning his supporters into buying worthless
University degrees or contributing to his bogus
Charity foundation

When he’s not losing money hand over fist,
Packing the Supreme Court
Or trying to destroy the democracy,
I kind of like that little two-****** dance
Trump does at his campaign stops—

It’s kind of amusing

Sandusky, Cosby, Madoff:
the wives riding the gravy train,
turning a blind eye

Sandusky: hiding upstairs,
ears finger-plugged, humming
to herself--whatever the Big Goof
was up to down in the basement
with those young boys
none of her business

Cosby: Disarming
his accusers with fake charm,
posing as a good friend while studiously
ignoring all those silly allegations,
as if her Dearly Beloved Meal Ticket
really was America's Favorite Dad
and not America's Most Famous
Serial Roofie-em First ******

Madoff: Hiding assets,
mailing her kids a million dollars
worth of jewelry and trying to keep
it a secret, on TV, she's so, so sorry,
never suspected a thing (okay Pinnochio)
moving now into a pricey mansion,
snacking on caviar again

And the victims? Too **** bad

It would be cool
To be a rhyming fool
To rhyme sappy
With happy
To rhyme hullabaloo
With Picachu
To rhyme resurrect
With circumspect
To rhyme yellow
With mellow
To rhyme dirigible  
With incorrigible
To rhyme hellacious
With salacious
To rhyme Jocasta
With pasta
To rhyme moon
With buffoon

And best of all
To make the call
To rhyme maybe
With baby

Then salute the purple cow
In the audience and take a bow

In Heaven, they spell your name correctly.

In Heaven, you have your own parking space.

In Heaven, you don't need a spam filter on your computer.

In Heaven, there are no sprained ankles or torn ACLs.

In Heaven, they play Tori Amos songs.

In Heaven, you neither sweat nor bleed.

In Heaven, there are no concussions.

In Heaven, there are no flat tires.

In Heaven, there is no male pattern baldness.

In Heaven, *** is optional and always consensual.

In Heaven, crutches, walkers and wheelchairs are superfluous.

In Heaven, meat is grown in a lab.

In Heaven, there are no guns.

In Heaven, the mailmen are friendly.

In Heaven, there are no brass knuckles.

In Heaven, the dogs do not bite.

In Heaven, the pharmacy is always open.

In Heaven, there are no hangovers.

In Heaven an afternoon nap is de rigueur.

In Heaven, we're all BFF.

Is not a test or a game
or an experiment,
it's an inevitability.

Don't want to play?
Too bad, you don't have a choice.

Fix it. I can't fix it.
Fix it. I can't fix it.
Fix it. I can't fix it.

I can't fix it.

Are boring. And that's what gets you
into trouble. Out of sheer boredom
you drink too much, hit on women
with boyfriends, start arguments
about politics that turn into fights
and, toward the end of the night,
grow maudlin. You cry in your beer,
blubber over how your life
has been one big failure and,
eventually, drunk as a skunk, you puke
all over your shoes, slink off
to your apartment, pass out on the floor
and wake up the next morning
with a shiner and a hangover
wondering what in the hell happened.

The **** Cheneys of the world
Start the wars but the young guys
Laid off from the paper mill fight
And die in them.

JFK, a bird-******* fool, maybe worse.
Bill Clinton, a bird-******* fool, maybe worse.
Ronald Reagan, that amiable date-*****.
George H. W. Bush, notoriously handsy.
Joe Biden, also handsy.
Donald Trump, a good old fashioned ******.

The best and the brightest.
The dumb *****. Not so different.

Yes indeed, we're a ***** bunch.

Disclaimer: It's a hard
and dangerous job and there
are plenty of good cops
and God bless them
but as for the others:

Cops Lie.
They lie and lie.
They even lie when there is video.
They lie even when their lies
are plain to see.
Clearly, the blood and broken nose
are from the victim smashing
his own face into the pavement.
The welts from repeatedly ramming
his head into that peace officer's baton.

If Attila the *** were a cop,
the police union would vigorously
defend his innocence.
He's a fellow officer, after all.
And if anyone on the force,
including the Police Chief,
disagrees the Union backers will
do their darndest to get him fired.

Now, imagine how much worse
it was before cell phones, before video.

Brutal.

Behold the expendable character
Who’s death is designed to help establish
The putative high stakes of the show.

Cue Walter, a homicidal monster.
Little nuance here. Sneering, lecherous,
He’s due a satisfyingly violent demise.

And there’s absolutely no danger
In giving him one.

I

I think it a clever
pre-emptive move when
I order him a vest
with the stitched message:

"Please Don't Kick The Dog."

No need to tell you
how that works out.

So I take the vest back
to the fire pit and he and I
watch it burn.

                 II

I take my dog for a walk
and, tugging on his leash,
he pulls me along, nose
to the ground, wandering
here, there and everywhere,
stopping now and then
to strategically ***,
living an adventure I can
only remotely share.

                 III

My dog, seated, lifts a leg
to lick himself down there
and looks a little puzzled.

They're gone, of course.

I pat his head,
offer him a meaty treat.

"Sorry Butch," I say,
"I was only following the vet's advice.
Try not to hold it against me,"
then I offer up my hand.

Lick or bite? It's up to him.

Announce a competition, any competition
feature the word "Victory,"
offer a shiny Gold Medal to the winner
and watch them beat a path to your door

Let's not kid ourselves,
it's a vice. Not
as destructive as snorting coke
or repulsive as Big Game
Trophy hunting but still a vice.

A quick high
that quickly wears off
followed by gloom
and postpartum depression.

Craving.
Hit.
High.
Withdrawal.
Depression.

The cycle repeats
ad nauseam.

Tried to quit.
So did you.

Sound familiar?

The needle, the vein:
conspirators.

The body, the brain:
accomplices.

The sweet poison:
irresistable.

Ten years of sobriety?
Those good intentions?
A child's balloon
snatched by the wind.
Gone.

For Brian

Yeah the pay’s okay, but it’s five long days
Of hard, ****** work plus, maybe
Another half day, then it’s off to the bar
On a Saturday night to get completely blotto
And try and forget the whole lousy week.
Maybe you get in a stupid fight
Or pass out or whatever, anyway
You wake up with cotton-mouth
And a terrible hangover.

Your high school sweetheart, who lied
To you about birth control
So that now she’s a stay-at-home mom
With two kids for you to support,
Is already up and out of bed
But she’s cranky. You groan and mope
Around, spend the day doing
Household chores or watching the tube
While the kids make a racket,
The clock ticking down all the while.

Come Sunday night, if the wife’s
In a generous mood, you might get
Lucky but don’t count on it if it isn’t
Your birthday or a special occasion
And in bed, before you drift off,
It’s all you can do to hold back the tears
Because this what you have to look forward
To for the next thirty or forty years
Unless you fall off a ladder first
Or have a heart attack.

No wonder you’re four times
As likely to unalive yourself
As someone in the general population.

Desiring a long life,
I renounced Pleasure,
Distraction, Fun--

Like a Buddhist monk--

And offered my delinquent
but pliant body
to the waterboard,
the smoldering cigarette,
the clenched fist,
the medieval rack

In the dungeon basement,
screams unheeded,
the seconds passed like hours,
the hours like days,
the days like years,
the years like millennia,

Each excruciating moment
impossible to elide or ignore,

I felt as close to Eternity
as a mortal man can get

Who claimed he liked what I sent
And, though he can’t publish any of it,
Would like to see more I say
I’m sorry but this is pretty much
My best **** anything else I submit
Will, frankly, not be as good
So why should I bother?

Dear God-Fearing, Pro-Life Evangelicals,

This is why you held your collective noses
and voted for a ******, corrupt, creepy,
money laundering, freeloading,
traitorous sociopath. Your fat, ugly,
***** grabbing, Putin-loving ******
came through for you. Congratulations!

It goes without saying
That what you leave out
Is as important as what you put in

Which reminds me of Tim O’Brien,
In the first draft of a war story
He left out the ****-field,
A mistake he rectified later
And the whole tone changed significantly,
Made things more gritty and real

Or so he claimed

Maybe he planned on putting
In the ****-field all along,
An author’s prerogative

True or not,
It makes a good story

Sign up.
Shorten your life.
Make an orthopod happy.

Yeah, there's a mime,
a sad clown and, at the end,
the lingering shot
of a balloon, string trailing,
floating skyward until
it's a mere speck on the horizon.

But really it's about ***.
It's always about ***
and the pseudo-intellectual B.S.
you've come to expect.

Still, I've seen worse.

I'm sorry. I have done
all that I can for you.
The surgeries. The chemo,
the bone marrow transplant,
the cocktail of toxic drugs,
each treatment more desperate
than the last, were to no avail.
I have consulted with colleagues,
scoured the medical journals.
I have wracked my brains,
explored every option.
If I could, I would move
Heaven and Earth to find you
a cure. But, alas, I cannot.
I am not God. I am only
a poor human being.
And so I must let you go.
I commend you to the angels,
to your friends and family,
To the hospice caretakers.
I wish you the best on this
your last journey the one that,
sooner or later, we all face.
I have failed you. forgive me.

How rich am I?
I wrapped my Royce
Around a tree
And walked away
Without a scratch.

Pet owners: got a dude,
a feller, a sweet male
cat, dog, pigaroo?

Choose tiny snip,
not big rip.

think about the clinic
and your boy,
your bestest buddy,
waking groggily
to the shocking absence.

Say no to mutilation.
Say yes to a vasectomy.

Let the boys be boys,
Save The Nads.

After the editor
dissected my manuscript
with a sharp red pencil,
he handed it back
and I said, "you killed it,"
to which he replied,
"it was already dead."